Grrl Power #439 – Valve hasn’t announced Portal Tree yet
Sydney was excitable – some might say injury prone – before she knew that the world contained the many potential wonders of things only possible due to super powers. She knew supers existed, but there’s a big difference between knowing something exists and having it feature heavily in your day to day life. Now that that’s the case for her… well, she runs headlong into trees with surprising confidence.
The question must be asked, what would someone put on a sign that would actually keep you out? Any sign trying too hard (much like this one) would only invite curiosity. If this comic was slightly more serious I think biohazard symbols and something about airborne infectious agents. Some sort of explosive hemorrhagic fever that promises to burst your eyes last so you can watch the rest of your body melt first… Nope, see, that’s trying too hard again.
Maybe “Warning: Worlds 7th most boring tunnel.” Cause of course, the most boring tunnel can’t even exist by virtue of it’s own internal paradox. Maybe just a sign about raw sewage?
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Rabid bees. No wi-fi. This is the best warning sign ever.
I love Halo’s shading in the first two panels. She looks particularly good putting her hair-band back on.
DANGER!
Temporary toxic waste storage
A couple sign ideas.. from the inane ‘Employees Only’, which is too common to elicit curiousity, and never leads to anything exciting… to the repulsive ‘Sewage Overflow’.. Which could be accompanied by the appropriate smell right at the entrance to complete the effect.
I have to disagree with your “employees only is too boring” statement. Many great, entertaining conspiracies are discovered by people on a tour going in to “employees only” territory. Like Fry in Futurama touring the Slurm factory, or C3-P0 wandering Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back.
A giant stone slab with the words “Turn back” carved in every language known to man, including Sumerian and Egyptian heiroglyphs. No explanation, just “Turn back”.
that would be sort of a magnet for would-be Indiana Jonses, though.
Yeah, but it would keep even the most hardcore urban explorers out.
But you would entice in everyone with even a passing interest in linguistics! I can say “hello”, “goodbye” and “cheers” in thirty or forty languages, but would be interested in learning more.
Just think of how useful that would be for any of the known, but undeciphered languages and manuscripts. “Keep out” is short, but specific enough that having an accurate translation could provide the key to unlocking more. Let alone what other wonders might be beyond that Rosetta door?
What?
You’re only discussing the text of the signs?
Just one of the more popular suggestions however the sign Slightly distressed with rust and copious amounts of dried blood.
Or wet blood replaced daily.
Welcome in idiot!
Free pudding samples – women only
Bill Cosby serving
Too Soon?
“Happy Home of Hugs and Honey
children very welcome”
I’d think would work very well.
Is it just me, but is there someone ‘off’ with Maxi’s face today? o_O
In all three panels, it looks wrong somehow
I had been holding off saying anything, in case it was just me, but yea. In the final panel, in particular, Maxima kind of looks like she is doing an impersonation of the original Godfather, complete with cotton wool stuffed in her cheeks.
I hate raising stuff like that, especially given how awesome everything else looks. Such as how wonderfully enthralled Sydney is, in panel five. However DaveB might want to be wary of back-lighting Maxima, like that, in future.
And, it almost looks like her eyes are glowing!!
With her sharp cheekbones any sort of non-standard lighting will make her look weird.
Yeah its gotta be the lighting. Its emphasizing her cheek which makes it look swollen
It doesn’t do her nose any service either
There’s two version of the movie: one with the “you can do it the ass” comment and the ending cutscene censored and one version where they’re left in.
^- aaand that was supposed to be in a reply to comment #450702, blame the cruddy comment system for the mess.
Ahh, so we may well have literally been seeing different versions of the movie. I only saw that recently, and did not think my memory would have played up quite that quickly. Thanks for that.
Although I do recall the scene that is being alluded to, the way I remember it was left more to the imagination, so I had probably stumbled across the edited version.
What? No WiFi? RUN AWAY!!!!!
Ok – the BEST way to get people to stay away from a door is a bad smell and a perfectly “normal” looking sign that explains said smell. You can even do variants based on the location.
For an outdoor location near a city like this one – the “Sewage entrance/overflow” type signs would be best. Authentic sewage smell required.
For a VERY rural location you’d want an authentic looking mineshaft with a faded and rusty “Bad Air” warning. Possibly with the scientific chemical name…. possibly just a very, very old hand-painted sign. Again, authentic smell required – something with a “chemical tang” to it.
For an urban location in a city you’d want a rusty door – no lock, tends to swing slightly open…. with both a bathroom sign AND an “out of order” handwritten notice. Authentic bathroom stench, slight negative pressure so the scent is only IN the room itself and plastic poop in a urinal visible from the door. The actual hidden door is in the handicap stall.
Oh – and a 2nd, working bathroom within sight. It will have half a roll of toilet paper, a changing table and a scrap of soap. Both the toilet and the sink look dingy but reasonably clean and work.
But don’t forget the friendly, secure homeless shelter just around the corner. Make sure all paths from any nearby liquor stores to your door lead past the shelter and that there’s a cosy bridge nearby just in case. Maybe have your cleaner bathroom be a side part of the shelter so two such miracles don’t seem to good to be true.
The secret of the world’s most boring tunnel? Nobody knows it’s the most boring tunnel.
Looks like Sydney came to a sudden arboreal stop.
“… sudden arboreal stop.”
~ CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BE-TREE-YAL!
You can tell that it was not dogwood, given that betrayal. But I am sure Sydney will not pine over it. Once she has spruced herself up, she will be fine.
Next time she should try it on a rubbertree mind, if she gives a fig over personal injury.
Yorp you son of a birch! My face went all ashen when I read your post. I know most cant cedar point of replying but maybe sydney was just unlucky and couldnt find the larch?
have a blank featureless room inside with a secret entrance and two levers, both levers lead to a pit trap with vacuum technology (courtesy of Dabbler) that deposit the curious bystander in a near by section of the park. the secret entrance is actually opened by a passphrase created by Dabbler.
Sounds like a Fun Park ride.
“WARNING POISON IVY”
Note the final panel, it was covered up by vegetation. Anyone who does not have their own personal force field, who fails to promptly seek medical care, rather than entering the facility, will find that it was no bluff.
Why would anyone warn the poison ivy?
Maybe because of giant flying bat sightings? o_O
Poison Ivy, Pah!!! Urushiol has no effect on me.That said it’ll make my sister’s life hell & potentially kill mom.
“warning: feces born pathogens”
That will keep me out of there.
probably also night-soil collectors
and scat-lovers.
Strategic Twilight fanfiction storage bunker
The Dental Clinic is Open
Hmmm…
DANGER: CARBON MONOXIDE. It’s odourless and deadly, and should dissuade anyone without breathing apparatus handy.
Use of subsonics and near-ultrasonics to produce unease and headaches.
Just a boring old cast iron door, rusty, apparently rusted shut, smelling faintly of urine (both human and canine) or perhaps covered in a spillage of something unpleasant and still not entirely dried up.
But they could return with a breathing apparatus another day. And you could warn about toxic waste but someone might actually decide they want to steal toxic waste or say it’s a sewage and have an urban explorer or homeless person enter anyway.
I like the door idea though. And there could be a boring storage room or tool shed with old, rusty and moldy tools looking all boring and not even worth stealing. And among the many holes on the wall one is a secret keyhole of sorts. Not something you could open without the actual key even with fancy lockpicking gear but also not something anyone would bother look for because why would such a thing exist in a boring storage room either so double security.
“AUTOMATED BOVINE CASTRATION AND RENDING MACHINERY”
With the entrance taped off, and a big sticky label on the door saying “Faulty Equipment”. The sub heading “Nature of fault:” having a check mark against: “Operating indiscriminately”.
STAND CLEAR OF BLAST DOOR
NO WIFI?!?!?
The only dinosaurs who would want to break into that wouldn’t be capable of finding the damned place.
“Sewage Treatment” would have probably sufficed, and would be something most governments hiding things would use.
So definitely no way to hunt for Pokémon Go Pokémons in there.
I think you’re forgetting about the ‘murk’ Pokemon or the Gaseous cloud ones.
Can’t think of it’s name right off the top of my head.Dang it, I can almost hear them calling their names out in my head… Been too long, the voices are faded.
Grimer / Muk & Koffing / Wheezing
The simplest tricks are still the best.
‘Meeting place of the home movie association.’
‘Paint drying competition: come, watch, smell.’
Have to wonder how many pairs of glasses she goes through/has sent in for repairs in the course of a week.
I would definitely sniff the latter out. Pun intended.
Of course, what nobody has picked up on, is that the sign is deliberately fake-seeming. As is the cubby-hole behind it. Being sized to only hold chess boards and pieces. Maxima is simply responding to Sydney’s question “I guess there’s a password?”
The sign is actually an aide memoir to remind agents what the password is. Of course it is encrypted, to ensure that nobody opens the secret tree entrance by just reading the sign out loud. In fact, if Halo followed Maxima’s hint, she could see the true nature of the tree directly!
In working at a national park that includes a defunct military installation, I need to discourage people from exploring an inviting-looking chamber. I find telling them it was an access point to the septic tank works pretty well at killing interest.
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/men-in-black/images/2/21/Pro_mib_guard.jpg
Two awesome warning signs that I have seen:
“Warning This Sign Is Only A Distraction” and “Warning Not Only Will This Kill You It Will Hurt The Whole Time You Are Dying”
Certain Death… I can live with that.
Rabid Bees… Not sure I wanna see that.
Cat Dander… OMG now I have to go in to see the kitties.
No WiFi Crap now I’m torn between that an the kitties.
Why has nobody seemed to notice that Robert and Ruckus are the guards?!?
They did, last page, when they first showed up
I looked through the comments on the last page and didn’t see anyone mentioning them.
That is because this is a popular comic and it gets multiple pages of comments, on each comic. In this case, Pansirus spotted them within a couple of hours of the comic being posted, so the comment appears on the first page.
But you did well identifying them, none-the-;less, assuming that is a tribute or homage. Normally, with such, there here are many comments, rather than just one or two.
“IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’LL NEED THE ANTIDOTE FROM DR. SMITH AT . YOU HAVE, MAYBE, TEN MINUTES. TOPS.”
You can even snowball it into a fetch quest type scenario, if you have the time/resources. Because who doesn’t love fetch quests?
…okay, after “AT”, I typed something, but it didn’t show up. Weird.
insert placename here
Okay, that time it worked. Huh.
Depends on what brackets you used
Yea, as Guesticus says, these brackets are ok for such comments: [ ] { } ( )
But the following type are used for tags, which prevent the contents showing: < >
You can see the list of tags in the area just below the comments box, when you are creating one. Spoiler is the exception to the rule that it uses the square brackets.
For information, if anyone wants to use the tags (for things like bold text or quoting someone) then you use the following format. Be sure to always end it with the same command but with a “/”as shown:
<b>This text displays in bold</b> —> This text displays in bold
<blockquote>Quote someone like this</blockquote> —>
<blockquote>”Or add quotes, if you want”</blockquote> —>
Heh, perhaps doing a pretty arrow, like this “—>” was not the best idea, given that it uses one of the special characters, and might confuse folks. It is not part of the command, it just points to how the example displays.
Personally what would keep me out would be a sign that reads “IRS Audit Division Headquarters” and below that “Abandon all funds ye who enter here”.
Nice one. But what if someone is so irrate about his treatment by the IRS that he would be tempted to run in? I advise ammending to “IRS audit revision division, expatriats subcommitee (north)”
Ctrl+F “Spies like us” (0 matches)
Really? Nobody else got that? :(
At least one person did.
If you look above and below the comments, you can see a list of numbers. Presently, on this comic, displaying as “<< 1 2 3". As such we are on the third page of comments, for the current comic. To ensure your search catches any key words, be sure to repeat it on each of the pages.
Sewer Pump station Number 7
” Valve hasn’t announced Portal Tree yet” Oh now I get it! Portal 3! I am so slow sometimes.
Heh, quicker than me. Very clever word-play too, given the portals could be used for the effect that Halo was hoping for.
Sydney should still have known: you don’t run through a portal face first, you put your hand through to make sure that it is open
To all Dave’s British readers, I would like to extend my best wishes to your new Prime Minister Harriet Jones, err, Theresa May.
Yea, get the right photo (Penelope Wilson is brunette when playing Harriet Jones) and I can see what you mean.
I guess Penelope will land a few more roles as the PM, in the future. As well as in the past. And, in some alternate reality, she is the PM, whilst Theresa May is the actress who plays her.
Okay, that is freaky.
Also, Pokemon Go players: If you sign in with Google it currently gets full access to your account (email, calendar, etc). You may want to log in to Google’s web interface and revoke that ASAP.
Plus, nefarious individuals have been shown recently to set up a ‘beacon’ location to draw individuals in and then rob them. Some organizations have asked individuals not to use the app in their locations, including several churches and the US Holocaust museum.
I just made a new gmail account specifically for Go.
……what? I don’t care how old I am. Pokey-mans, dood!
Just make sure you never play when sleepy, or distracted. It will not take much for you to accidentally play, not realising you are currently logged on with your main account. One of the ‘perks’ of using your Google log ins is that they typically do not require you to re-enter your password, for each program, if you are already logged in.
Meaning you will just be one click away from handing out your personal data, given the breach TxDave describes. If you play frequently the odds of a slip up go up considerably. And if you play very infrequently, you may simply forget that precaution.
Mathilda May is hotter though (specially in Lifeforce)
No wi-fi.. thats scary door. Tell do internet still work.